The August: Osage County Cast Has Great Advice For Surviving The Holidays

August: Osage County is the movie to see this holiday season if you want to feel better about your own family. Featuring one of the most epic throwdowns between Oscar winners (Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts) we can remember, one immediately preceded by a hysterically awkward family dinner, it’s the movie that takes family dysfunction to a new level and has a blast doing it. Turns out it’s way more fun to watch famous people play a squabbling family than to deal with your own.

And having survived both the filming of August: Osage County and their own family gatherings, the stars of the movie—which opens in limited release on Christmas Day—have some advice on how to get through the holidays. At a Peggy Siegal-hosted luncheon for the film, Margo Martindale dug up her own past tales of family dysfunction: “Only in retrospect do I remember going to my mother and father's house for Christmas and he and his brother rolling up their sleeves in the backyard and beating the shit out of each other.” Martindale burst into laughter, along with the rest of the crowd, before admitting, “For what, I don’t know.”

Juliette Lewis, who plays the naïve Karen in the film, said that her own mother was an inspiration for the character, someone who only sees the positive things in life. But that comes with an added bonus around the holidays: “My mom can laugh at herself. There’s nobody in my family who takes themselves overly seriously, [where] you can’t nudge them and make them laugh. I’m lucky.” And that’s a major part of Lewis’s advice for anyone dreading their own holiday gatherings:

Lewis:Humor, humor, humor. Find a confidant, the one you can roll your eyes with. My sister is like my right arm, and my brother is kooky and hilarious. Honestly, practice being grateful. I’m grateful that everybody is here, that my parents are still alive. I’ve had some scares in the past. My family is pretty groovy, so I have no complaints, to tell you the truth.

Abigail Breslin, the youngest of the August: Osage County cast, seemed well aware that her own holiday horror stories paled in comparison to something like Margo Martindale’s father whaling on her uncle in the backyard. But she did remember getting in trouble a few Christmases back thanks to an infomercial product and her own camera:

Breslin:There was a fight with, like, the unibrow clippers that you see on the infomercials. My brother was sleeping and then my [other] brother buzzed it in his ear, and it was a big drama. And I got in trouble because I videotaped it, for encouraging.

And though Breslin isn’t yet 18, she had some melancholy advice for how to get through the holidays: “The best thing is to not have too many expectations, so then you are never disappointed. Don’t try and recreate past holidays. It’s never going to be the same.” August: Osage County, which has been nominated for a slew of Golden Globes and other awards, will be open in select cities on Christmas and expanding widely after that.